The Laptop Gardener

What’s Wrong With My Plant? (And How Do I Fix It?)

Learn how to become a plant doctor – No Ph.D. required is the selling pitch on the cover of this new book. The irony of this statement is that this book is written by a Ph.D.  But it certainly doesn’t read like an academic book. It is a hands-on, practical book that will be a big help with identifying and deciding on a course of treatment for many plant problems in any garden.

Co-Author David Deardorff is a plant pathologist and botanist who lives and gardens in Port Townsend, Washington.  Kathryn Wadsworth is a naturalist who shares her love and gardening and the outdoors through writing and photography.  Although the authors hail from the Northwest, the garden problems they describe are pretty much universal across the continent.

Good books to help serious gardeners and Master Gardeners identify plant problems are really rare. Many include plant problems with a slew of other subjects and are so “boiled down” that they simplify everything so much that they can be dangerously inadequate because of their omissions.  Others have such inaccurate drawings that even if you recognize the problem, the picture in the book bears no resemblance.  Or some books think that they are being global in their scope but they really are addressing just NE plant problems.  A Visual Guide to Easy Diagnosis and Organic Remedies by David Deardorff and Kathryn Wadsworth tries to overcome these shortfalls — common to other plant pest and disease books and really be a valuable tool for the organic gardener.

Dealing with a sick plant is one of the most frustrating situations a gardener can face. If only plants could talk, we would be able to deal with problems easier.  With this book, gardeners can learn to read the signs that plant show and take action to cure common plant maladies.  The book is organized in an easy visual (either drawing or picture) clue style.  

Part One has illustrated flow charts or keys, that are organized by the plant part on which the symptoms appear (such as “the leaf has raised bumps, warts or weird growth”).  This first part is a simple series of statements that use yes or no questions to narrow down the problem choices.  When a possible diagnosis is determined, readers follow the clue to Part Two which holds a solution where the problem is explained, often confirmed with a photo or drawing, and a safe, organic solution. Part Three – What Does It Look Like? contains a photo gallery of common stressed, damaged or diseased plants. A simple format that will help solve plant problems even without knowing the plant name.

An impressive 451 pages (although some pages in Part One have a fair amount of white space), $24.95 and published by the good gardening people at Timber Press.

Check out the authors’ blog on gardens, gardening and pests called Deardorff and Wadsworth at http://ddandkw.com.

A Book Review

Container Gardening: 250 Design Ideas & Step-By-Step Techniques from the Editors and Contributors of Fine Gardening.

Container Gardening is Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings and pumpkin pie for desert. The book is loaded with luscious color photos that are good enough to eat.  In full color and growing in glorious containers are everything from big and beautiful red banana, fabulous foliage Persian shield, sophisticated silver sage, eye catching Dragon Wing begonia, spectacular succulent echeveria, packing a punch Mandevilla, summer radiance ‘Cherries Jubilee’ Allamanda, incredible edible ‘Bull’s Blood’ beets to bring on the drama – Rex begonia.

Container Gardening Cover

Container Gardening is filled with imaginative and creative ideas to grow new plant combinations and to accessorize with plants and containers in new ways.  For example, not many gardeners would have thought to use a sweet potato from the grocery store billowing out of a large container with white Million Bells Calibrachoa (annual), Artemisia ‘Powis Castle’ (perennial), lemon grass (herb) and Purple Wave petunia (annual), but the combination of textures, shapes and forms is quite attractive. 

The book is full of creative ideas portrayed through pictures. One at the beginning that I like is a wrought Iron table with large openings in a grid pattern on the top. The openings are the perfect size for the 4” terra cotta pots shown slid through part way. A series of succulents are placed around the edge of the table with larger gallon pots in the center. Smaller pots are placed under the mesh table on patio blocks.  Some patio slabs have been removed and squares of attractive plants growing up from below. 

Beside the elegant and formal container displays are a few fun examples of funky pots and funky painted Adirondack chairs for the whimsical at heart (like me!).  And for those that need help to stage containers, there are photos that show how easy it is to create an attractive display using overturning pots to build up a pedestal to the desired height.

Container Gardening is more than just a book of inspiring pictures – it is informative too. Many of the plants are listed with their hardiness zone or category labels: annual, perennial, herb, etc.  The Materials & Techniques section is a particularly good part of the book for do it yourself information. 

A step-by-step propagation section shows how to take tip cuttings and which plants are the best to root.

Lee Reich contributed a chapter on making a good potting soil. He suggests mixing your own soil, which he says he has found produces better results than commercial mixes.  He includes a homemade potting soil recipe which uses 2 gallons each of peat moss, perlite, compost and garden soil. Included with this he adds ½ cup each of dolomitic limestone, soybean meal, greensand, rock phosphate and kelp powder.

Do-it-yourselfers will appreciate the Drip Irrigation 101 chapter with details on setting up a watering system. Also informative is the build your own lined hanging basket and hypertufa container.

The photos are nicely done with good close up details. Including real world situations portrayed by insect eaten leaves. Many nice, lush and full packed pictures of containers fill the pages – some a bit too full, reminding me of how a garden would look after being prepared for an open garden day – warning, selective pruning will be required for some containers in about two weeks to keep the plants in bounds. In any event, the Fabulous Foliage chapter is fabulous.

Throughout the book are numerous design and staging suggestions such as to break up wall space with containers or soften hard edges and corners with containers. 

One of the best design tips in the book is to think of the plants going into your containers as being in one of three categories.   The “Thrillers” are the plants that make a bold and exciting centerpiece – like New Zealand flax. The “Spillers” are the plants that tumble from the container – like sweet potato vine, and  the “Fillers” are the plants that fill up the pot. This last group includes lantana, pentas or wax begonia. Think of using the three basic types of plants, thrillers, spillers and fillers in your next container design.

Container Gardening is full of good solid information about successfully creating more above ground growing areas.  But there are a couple of areas where I wanted the writers to tell or show me more. While many container plant arrangements were identified with a drawn key, there were still some that were not fully identified and this was a bit frustrating. Also, I wanted to read more than just 4 pages about using perennials in containers as I feel that they are underused and could really add a lot to any garden.  An expanded chapter on edible plants in containers would also be justified as interest in food growing is on the increase at present. There are plenty more vegetable plants that are excellent for containers that could have been shown.  Well maybe Taunton Press has plans for a follow up book to cover these areas.  

 Container Gardening: 250 Design Ideas & Step-By-Step Techniques from the Editors and Contributors of Fine Gardening is available in paperback, 240 pages $19.95 ISBN-13: 978-1-60085-080-6
Cover image used with permission of The Taunton Press.

A Book Review

Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love by Julie Moir Messervy is a new book published by The Taunton Press.

“Home is where the heart is. It’s our sanctuary in a stressful world, the place we long to return to when we’ve been away. But home is more than just the four walls of our house; it encompasses the land around the house as well. When we turn down our street and pull into our driveway, we’re home,” so starts Julie Moir Messervy in her newest book, Home Outside. She continues, “Yet most of us feel less confident about creating outdoor living spaces than we do about our interiors. Inside, we happily paint walls, choose finishes, and buy rugs, furniture, and fixtures, but when we step outside we’re unsure of how to begin. That’s where this book comes in. Home Outside is not just another garden- or landscape-design book. It’s a step-by-step approach that lets you see your property through the eyes of a designer (that would be me).”

The cover of Home Outside by Julie Moir Messervy

Julie Moir Messervy challenges readers to discover what kind of designer they are by taking a fun designer’s personality test to better understand what aesthetic garden style best fits. The score based on the answers to a series of questions will reveal which of the following designer styles best fits, reserved or expressive, practical or conceptual, principled or personal, orderly or relaxed.

Home Outside is systematic progression through a six step design process to help homeowners turn their yards into a truly functional and visually appealing landscape. Julie Moir Messervy divides the process into

• Lay of the land- where the site is thoroughly examined for soil, sun, wind, circulation, vegetation and views.
• Big moves –where one of four basic layouts is used to organize the space around the house, as well, an aesthetic arrangement is chosen and a theme or style identified.
• Comfort Zones-where the surrounding, welcoming, neighboring and living zones are identified.
• Making it Flow-where movement around and through the landscape is studied according to whether people will be moving, pausing or stopping.
• Placing the Pieces-where focal points and frames are placed in the landscape to create a harmonious picture.
• Sensory Pleasures-where the details that bring the landscape to life such as beauty and harmony are added using the natural elements of earth (plants), water, fire (lighting) and air.

Even if your garden is not ready to get a major renovation or a new landscape plan created, Home Outside is loaded with ideas on how to improve even a small portion of a larger landscape scheme. Perhaps a new retaining wall, side garden bed, or small patio is all that is needed right now, Home Outside can provide the inspiration to create a unique, usable and personal space.

The Island - being in the middle of an open space. In the Lay of the Land chapter of Home Outside by Julie Moir Messervy.

Homeowners with all types of budgets from working on a shoestring to “what budget?” Can benefit from the design steps in Home Outside. Many simple “plan view” sketches have been include to illustrate the points made in the text. For example, three different driveways are shown for the same house, a good pedestrian flow and bad flow examples and a symmetrical framing of focal points and asymmetrical one.

Throughout Home Outside, Julie Moir Messervy transforms the design process into very manageable and easy to comprehend topics so that homeowners can really create a landscape that is their own “home outside,” — one that can be truly used, enjoyed, and provides a real outdoor connection.

Home Outside: Creating the Landscape You Love by Julie Moir Messervy
Hardcover, 240 pages, $30.00 The Taunton Press, ISBN: 978-1-60085-008

The cover image was used with permission by The Taunton Press.  The Island image appears on page 47 of Home Outside. Photo courtesy of  Myke Hodgins, Hodgins & Associates Landscape Architects.

Doug Welsh's Texas Garden Almanac

The Texas Garden Almanac is a giant monthly calendar (in book form) full of helpful tips about what to do in the garden based on the unique Texas environment. Very easy to use, the Texas Garden Almanac is set up so that all you have to do is open the book to the appropriate month and Doug’s excellent advice is laid out in an easy to understand strategy for gardeners of all expertise levels to use. It is written in an engaging conversational style and covers all the essential topics of growing trees, shrubs, vines, lawn, vegetables, herbs and fruit. Design themes are also included as well as key plant growing topics focusing on soil, mulch, water, dealing with pests and plant maintenance.
The Texas Garden Almanac tells how to create beautiful gardens and have fun doing it.

At the end of every chapter is a Timely Tips section with important points relating to flowering plants, garden design, soil & mulch, watering, plant care, trees, shrubs & vines, lawns, vegetables, fruits & herbs, houseplants and even a few points for butterflies, birds and squirrels.

Many diagrams have been added to illustrate key techniques, including many in the February chapter on pruning. Texas maps for the first and last average freeze dates, chilling hours, hardiness zones, and rainfall are very beneficial as an “at-a-glance” reference.

Many other handy charts and lists are included in The Texas Garden Almanac such as Bermudagrass cultivar comparisons (April chapter), deer-resistant plant lists (July chapter), when to plant fall vegetables (July chapter), and top trees for Central Texas recommended by Skip Richter (August chapter).

The book also contains design ideas on form, color and tips for the do-it-yourself landscaper in the September and October chapters.

Doug Welsh

Doug doesn’t balk at having a little fun while offering his sage advice. He lists the top 10 mistakes of Texas gardeners in the November chapter and has the top 10 New Year’s Resolutions for gardeners and yardeners in the December chapter.

Even though most gardeners agree about the importance of soils for a successful garden, having a discussion about soil is most often not met with much enthusiasm. Soils 101, 201 and 301 in the January chapter do focus on the importance of good soil preparation, but Doug has written them in easy to understand terms with nothing harder to say or spell than alluvial (defined as river-deposited), sodic (salty) or microorganism. With a caution of “Don’t monkey with the soil too much”, Doug has again succeeded in making his soil lesson fun and educational.

One of the most unique pieces of advice that Doug gives is to encourage readers to think like a plant. In the January chapter he writes “Perhaps the greatest ability you can achieve in gardening is to think like a plant. If you can do so, then you can understand a plant’s needs, anticipate and respond to them, and most important, avoid problems associated with not meeting the plant’s needs.” Doug goes on to say that he knows that plants don’t actually think. But it is helpful for him to think like a plant- hopefully for readers too.

Doug Welsh’s Texas Garden Almanac is $24.95 with 512 pages, 6 color maps, more than 170 color illustrations and 50 black & white drawings. It is published by Texas A&M University Press and is available online at www.tamu.edu/upress. The book is illustrated by Aletha St. Romain (it has a wonderful Old Blush China Rose illustration for the January chapter among many other wonderful illustrations).

Doug Welsh is a professor and extension horticulturist at Texas A&M University and statewide coordinator for the Texas Master Gardener Program. Doug also hosts a gardening call-in radio show called Garden Success! on KAMU-FM 90.9 Thursdays from noon to 1 pm and provides gardening tips on television each week on The Weekend Gardener shown Fridays on KBTX-TV.
For more details about the Texas Garden Alamanac visit the Texas A&M University Press Consortium at http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2007/welsh.htm or call 1-800-826-8911